Unusually this case had already had a previous application and appeal refused, which had been dealt with by another national planning organisation, but unfortunately the inspector had not agreed with their argument and case and it was dismissed. This added an element of complexity to the case which we had to be mindful of.
For the assessment of this particular case our team looked at the recent planning history of the site, starting with the latest retrospective application refusal specifically the legally binding decision notice and officers delegated report, the application plans, planning application statement, correspondence to and from the local authority. Additionally the documents for the dismissed planning appeal were also assessed which included the planning inspectors report and the submitted planning appeal statement.
The refusal reasons for this case were listed in the local authorities refusal as;
By virtue of the cumulative impact of the extent and shape of the land to change to residential garden land, and the outbuildings, the development would not be sympathetic to the character and visual amenity of the local landscape and the scenic quality of this countryside location which is readily appreciated from the footpath.
The proposal would result in the spread of residential paraphernalia which would be out of keeping with the character of the local area introducing a suburban characteristic harming the rural landscape setting of the site.
The proposal would result in residential creep and erosion of open countryside. The development would fail to respect and enhance the character of the area and would result in detrimental harm to the character and visual amenity of the landscape.
As such the development is contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework and a selection of local policies that they listed.
This case was not as simple as appealing the refusal, we wanted to give the client a belt and braces approach by bringing in an additional application that introduced other elements of argument that had not been in the previous application.
Once instructed by the client we allocated one of our senior case officers from our team to start to produce the appeal statement.
The planning statement was 38 pages deep with 7919 words this document had to be extremely robust, exceedingly comprehensive and able to cover beyond doubt the refusal reasons that the local authority had used to refuse the application. Additionally it needed to demonstrate to the planning inspector that the council had be wrong in refusing the previous applications and the other inspector had not considered the whole case as it should have been.
We can confirm that on 6th February the planning inspector visited the site and following that visit on 9th February a decision was issued where the inspector granted the permission.
Hart District Council Retrospective Planning Appeal Garden Buildings in Open Countryside
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